The mayor may have backed away from the most NIMBY-bashingly radical recommendations from his Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda committee but that doesn’t mean the HALA plan isn’t in motion in Seattle.
North of Capitol Hill, Pete Faraday enjoys living in his house on Portage Bay, but he wanted to find a way to make it more multi-generational. His solution: Build a backyard cottage so that other members of the family — or even renters — have a place to live. Meanwhile in Miller Park, the City of Seattle is making plans to sell a surplus property and put the proceeds toward developing low-income rental housing, a key recommendation from the HALA process.
DADU in Portage Bay
Easing the way for backyard cottages, formally known as Detached Affordable Dwelling Units or DADUs, has been one of the less controversial recommendations made by the mayor’s affordable housing task force. Although the mayor backed away from a proposed change that would have allowed any single-family house in the city to become a duplex, ideas to encourage more backyard cottages remain in play.
The units can be up to 800 square feet (or 1,000 square feet if attached to the house), and typically have a kitchen, bathroom and one or two bedrooms — basically a standalone apartment sitting in someone’s yard. The affordable housing task force pointed to the cottages as a way to increase the housing supply in a relatively cost-effective manner.
Between 2007 and June 30 of this year, there have been 197 backyard cottages built in Seattle, and one has been demolished. Over that span, there have been a total of 51,970 units built, so cottages represent 0.38% of the new construction. Not exactly the kind of numbers that are going to bend the curve on costs, as yet. But the numbers have been growing.
In 2009, only eight were built, but in 2010, that number more than doubled to 17. Bruce Parker, a backyard cottage designer who worked on Faraday’s project, says that was the year when the city started opening up the regulations on cottages, allowing them citywide. The numbers have stabilized at about 40 new cottages a year for the past few years.
Parker said he’s happy to see the numbers picking up, but notes there is a long way to go if cottages are going to make a dent in housing affordability.
“It’s just not happening at a pace that’s making the density advocates happy,” he said.
He notes there’s a city regulation in place which states the owner must live in one of the units. Parker said that eliminating that requirement would likely add more homes, but he’d rather see it kept in place. Otherwise a developer could start buying up property, tearing down one house and basically building two on each lot.
“It just opens it up to a completely different kind of investor,” he said.
Parker, who said he got into designing the small homes years ago, says he enjoys the challenge of designing a small space. In the cottages he’s designed, he noticed a number of trends. Many, like Faraday, want to be able to have family live close by. Others use it purely as a rental, some as a more traditional rental, while others use it as a VRBO or for an Airbnb space. Still others have similar thoughts as Faraday.
“Some live in it and rent the house,” Parker said.
(Image: City of Seattle)
For sale in Miller Park
Monday afternoon, the City Council approved legislation authorizing the sale of a $775,000 22nd Ave E property once used as a home for teen mothers as surplus property. That’s pretty much standard operating procedure for unused properties.
But in the wake of Hala, what’s new is this: remaining proceeds from putting the real estate on the market will go to the Office of Housing Low Income Housing Fund:
Proceeds from the sale, estimated at $775,000, will be used as follows: $38,180 will be repaid to the federal government for grant funds that were received as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and were used for a sprinkler system at the now defunct residential facility for teenage parents located on one of the two properties; FAS will be reimbursed for the costs associated with the disposition of the property; and all remaining proceeds will be deposited into the Office of Housing (OH) Low Income Housing Fund 16400.
“When it comes to affordable housing, it’s time to put our money where our mouth is,” said Council member Nick Licata who is credited with revising the original bill. “The modest funds used from this unneeded property will now be used to house people in need. This is one of dozens of steps necessary to provide affordable housing opportunities for more people.”
Under the approval, half of the proceeds must serve households with incomes under 30% of Area Median Income (AMI), and the other half must serve households with incomes under 60% AMI.
“The Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Advisory Committee final report included a recommendation that the City prioritize surplus properties for affordable housing, or if not suitable for development, to dedicate the proceeds to affordable housing (page 19),” a statement on the agreement reads. “The legislation adopted today aligns with that recommendation.”
The two-parcel property includes a residential house and adjacent single family residential building lot. “There is a high demand for housing in this neighborhood,” a report on the property reads. “It is financially feasible to adapt the building for reuse as a single family residence, and to build a new single family house on the vacant lot.” If you’re shopping, expect to pay “fair market value.” And, yes, there is probably a little irony that a mostly unaffordable home ownership market will help fund affordable rental housing.
Yes, in my backyard cottage
Back in Portage Bay, Faraday wasn’t looking to solve the city’s problems, necessarily, but to solve his own. His wife’s parents live in Ballard. While they are still independent, it’s possible that, within a few years, they’ll need to be closer to the family. The backyard cottage will get them closer, while still allowing them autonomy, Faraday said.
Beyond that, he noted that if his children go to the UW, they could live there as a cheaper alternative to being in a dorm. Finally, he expects he could move in there himself.
“At some point, you don’t need a four-bedroom house,” he said. “I fully envision I’ll end up living there.”
At that point, he would rent out the main house where he now lives. In the meantime, when no family members need the use of an 800 square foot house, he said he expects to rent it out, possibly to UW students. He expects he won’t need to charge much in rent to cover the expenses of the unit, which he said he’s happy about.
“One could afford to be much more reasonable, and I think that’s why the city is encouraging it,” Faraday said.
Faraday said his unit cost him about $150,000 to build. He said he started the process about two years ago, but spent the first year looking for a designer and builder that would work with his budget. Then the design, permitting and construction portion took about another year.
He and Parker each brought up connecting to utilities as a stumbling block. Parker noted that the sewer connection for the unit is expensive, and wonders if it might be treated more like an apartment than a house for those purposes.
Faraday had a similar problem with the electrical connection, which he said added 3% to the total project cost. He wondered if that might be streamlined in order to make the units cost less to build.
Faraday also noted that current city regulations require the unit to have a parking space, which means that anyone considering building one has to have a couple dozen square feet of extra space sitting empty. Faraday wondered if that parking space will be needed, considering the types of people likely to want to live in such a unit.
“It will be interesting to see how many want cars,” he said.
We are currently renting out the house now that it is complete :
https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/apa/5175530226.html
Architect was Bruce Parker : http://www.microhousenw.com/
I love these! Cottages seem like such a sensible way to deal with increased density. It would be great if more people could have the experience of living in a house in a residential neighborhood without having to leave Seattle. 800 square feet is also a reasonable size for one or two adults.
I 100% agree. As an adult with no children, I am so tired of living in apartments, but buying a whole house is too much space. This is the perfect compromise.
Really beautiful house, but not sure it’s a good example for this article, re: the “A” in DADU. Unless we’re calling $2500 for a 2BR the new definition of “affordable”.
pretty sure the “A” in DADU stands for “accessory,” not “affordable.”
Yeah, not sure it’s exactly affordable to UW students as an alternative to dorms at that price!
Maybe a better name would be DINKADU (Double Income No Kids Affordable Dwelling Unit)?
Funny that 800 sqft is considered a micro house. This city is full of old mid-century homes around 800 sqft.
So the cost to build was 150k excluding land. If this were a conventional development it would sell for over 500k in many places. Understanding the land cost would be included and varies based on location but shows how much developers are raking in.
150k excluding land. The property to build would be 200-250k. Consider that you’d have to run services as well…those were already there in this case. So add 27,000. The site prep, improvements, and engineering were complete so add another 40k. Incomparable to a raw site. If a builder makes 25% on a project they are doing very well. Most come in at 15%-20%. Money has to be made, I wouldn’t qulify that marginnas “raking it in.”
greenpod – they start at under $85K. But mickey is correct, it’s the hard and soft costs of preparing the site and buying the land.
http://www.greenpoddevelopment.com/
“Although the mayor backed away from a proposed change that would have allowed any single-family house in the city to become a duplex, ideas to encourage more backyard cottages remain in play.”
Yes, the Mayor backed away from “any single-family house in the city” to 6% which means some people will see a lot more density. I’m one of them and I’d be fine with some parts of what is being asked (more backyard cottages and MILs) but it’s pretty hard to be in a neighborhood where there are slumlords and where we have already has been upzoned.
I’d personally support changes to allow multiple houses to be constructed on previously single-dwelling lots. I make a decent living, but as a single person it’s basically impossible for me to buy anything but an absurdly tiny condo in the city. If there were far more ~800 sq.ft. houses for sale I’d have some options, but otherwise I’m either trapped in the renting track or I have to move to a cheaper city.
YES! I’m in the same boat. Rent, move, or marry. Want to go on a date? :)
I’ve read articles about bringing back the cottage idea seattle used to have – semidetached or stand-alone. There are many throughout the city, but zoning regulations have made them more difficult to build. Just south of Providence Hospital some were built a few years ago. Up in Shoreline (yeah, I know) I saw some 1000-sq/ft houses built together in a little community – too expensive now, but they weren’t at the time.
it’s the cost of the land that’s the sticking point, not the building costs.
This is exactly what I want to do! I’ve got the Greenpod (560 sq feet) unit picked out – and having the ability to put a “grandmother” cottage in the backyard would be wonderful. When I walk around neighborhoods, I’m always checking out people’s yards and thinking that my pod would fit in there.
I’m one of those who put in an ADU, so mine is attached. I will tell you that I understand why people don’t get theirs permitted and legal. It added months to the construction and thousands of dollars for plans and permitting. There are many attached, mother in law or MIL) units out there that are not being counted. As for the caveat that the owner or a relative of the owner must live in one of the units may be a deterrent as well. Most people don’t want to be landlords because they hear all these horror stories about being a landlord. However if you consider how many rental units there compared to how often you hear horror stories, it’s still a small minority.